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Luck, lemonade and a bit of siding
There but for the grace of God go I. Those words echoed through my mind all afternoon a few Saturdays ago, as I took part in a Habitat for Humanity build project.It was a good day. My colleagues and friends had stepped up to help me meet – and exceed – my fundraising goals and I spent the day exercising my construction muscles by putting siding on a house that would eventually become the home of an underprivileged family. It felt good to be doing something purposeful and constructive, and to be giving back. We had stopped for lunch, and former recipients… Read more…
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I love you … I love you not – surviving spring
I love spring. Every year I wait for the snow to melt, eager to start lifting up the heavy, wet leftover leaves in my garden to see the beginnings of signs of new life. Slowly the whole world comes to life. Little snowdrops push through, rewarding me with the first glimpses of what’s to come. About the same time I realize that the cold winter air is beginning to fill with the sounds of songbirds. Out come the rakes and we uncover tulip and daffodil leaves. Purple and yellow crocuses follow quickly and then the starry shapes of chianodoxa. It… Read more…
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One more chance…
Second chances. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. It sounds so simple. Of course everyone should given a second chance. But what happens when a second chance turns into a third, a fourth, a fifth? How many chances should someone be given before you simply have to turn away? When do your own needs for peace supplant someone else’s need for another opening? Real-life friends will know my marriage exploded in relatively spectacular form a little more than a decade ago. In early years, I tried to remain very open to my children’s father having a second chance… Read more…
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Recapturing Christmas
It gets harder every year. With every season that passes, life gets busier. There’s more to do, more to deal with, more chores that need to be done, more activities that kids need to be shuttled to and from, more stress at work. It gets harder every year. Gifts and gadgets on Christmas wish lists are more techy and more expensive. With family becoming more spread out, it’s harder to stay close and to know what is the right present for the right person. Commercial Christmas songs ring out and decorations appear in the stores earlier and earlier, starting the… Read more…
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Life has no reset button – or does it?
I read a blog recently from respected Canadian business man, Peter Aceto. The president and CEO of Tangerine Banking argued that there’s no “reset” button in life. I have to respectfully disagree with him.While we are all a product of the experiences we have in life, there’s no rule book that says those experiences have to define our future. We can reset, reinvent ourselves and rechart the road ahead. In retrospect, I think what Mr. Aceto really meant that there’s no chance to have a “do-over”, and in that, he’s right. We cannot change the past. The decisions we’ve made and the experiences we’ve… Read more…
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Time to make a mess
“When humans create,” he said, “it’s a messy process.” I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to those words last Sunday morning. I was more concerned, I admit, about the harmonies in the next piece of music we were to sing. Besides, I’m not so good at “messy”. As little girls, we’re taught that messy is bad. We are taught to sit nicely, speak politely and generally not be the whirling dervishes our brothers allowed to be. After all, boys will be boys, they tell us. And so it sticks. As a grown woman, I like things to be… Read more…
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A house divided
It was with a great deal of fear and trepidation that I went to my church’s special meeting earlier this spring. We’re a church clearly at odds, and this meeting was the culmination of a lot of whispering, letter-writing, finger-pointing and probably wrongdoing – on both sides. After a long and impassioned speech by the current minister, and some questions from the congregation members who were assembled to vote, it was decided by a relatively slim majority that the congregation would terminate our relationship with the current minister. I wasn’t wrong to be fearful. There’s a long story of how we got… Read more…
